CLINTON-KAINE EDUCATION VIEWS MIGHT MAKE YOU RETHINK PUBLIC SCHOOL
We know what Hillary Clinton wants for public K-12 education. She wants universal government preschool, despite the well-documented failure of government preschool to deliver even a fraction of what the Hillaryites promise. She wants federal “education SWAT teams” to “help” struggling schools (that idea creates interesting visuals). She wants more federal control over school discipline to enforce “school climates” of which she approves. And all education should be geared toward a sweeping, centralized, government-controlled system of workforce-development.
The centerpiece of his proposals on education when he ran for governor was to install universal government preschool for all Virginia four-year-olds.
We probably won’t hear much from Clinton about Common Core, given that (as Missouri Education Watchdog reports), the leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee advise avoiding the subject as a “political third rail.” But even though she bemoans the controversy surrounding Common Core, she endorses the idea of the national standards as a means to control the “most important non-family enterprise” society engages in (take that, you intrusive parents!) – not surprising, since much of her professional life, at least the part not devoted to suppressing bimbo eruptions or selling national security to the highest bidder, has involved laying the groundwork for Common Core.
Clinton’s vice-presidential choice, former Virginia governor and current U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, actually is less tainted by Common Core than is his Republican vice-presidential counterpart. While Trump’s VP pick, Governor Mike Pence, ensured the national standards were retained in Indiana despite intense opposition, Kaine had already left the governor’s office before the Common Core decision had to be made (his successor, Governor Bob McDonnell, was one of the few governors to reject the national standards, so Virginia – at least theoretically – operates outside of Common Core).But all other information about Kaine’s position on education indicates he and Hillary are soulmates. Education Week reports that Kaine is a champion of the workforce-development theory of education, ensuring as a senator that the statist new Every Student Succeeds Act includes career and technical education (CTE) as a “core” subject. Also, the centerpiece of his proposals on education when he ran for governor was to install universal government preschool for all Virginia four-year-olds (fortunately for all Virginia four-year-olds, that program was never implemented, although the National Education Association did praise Kaine for having “expanded pre-kindergarten”).
But alas, Virginia toddlers aren’t out of the woods yet, and Kaine’s wife, Virginia education secretary Anne Holton, is part of the threat. Appointed by Governor Terry McAuliffe (a Clinton henchman), Holton is a huge fan of government preschool. When McAuliffe announced in December 2014 that Virginia was awarded a $17.5 million federal grant for government preschool, Holton welcomed the news and, quite without supporting evidence, parroted the progressive-education line that “[a]ccess to quality early childhood education is a determining factor in future success” for students. (McAuliffe thanked Sen. Kaine for helping get this money for his wife’s department – business as usual in progressive-education world.) So Team Clinton is all on the same page.
Holton takes the reliable progressive line on other education issues. More taxpayer money is always needed; if the enormous sums already spent haven’t done the trick, the answer is to turn the spigot to full-blast. Like the Common Core machine and its Outcome-Based Education forebears, she wants to focus on “competencies,” rather than academic knowledge, for high-school graduates. She opposes school-choice measures, which could be either good or bad depending on the measures proposed, but it’s probably safe to say she’s motivated by desire to protect the government-school monopoly at all costs.
Holton has expressed concern with over-emphasis on high-stakes testing, primarily, it seems, because of the “achievement gap,” the closing of which she describes as the “moral imperative of our time.” Common Core implementation has coincided with a widening achievement gap in many states, but since the DNC has forbidden discussion of this “third rail,” don’t expect exploration of that issue.
A lobbyist for the Virginia Education Association praised Holton for embracing the fundamental progressive diagnosis for “fixing schools” – have the government reshape the rest of society to enforce more equality. “When we look at improving our schools,” he said, “a lot of people think that the only thing we need to do is change what’s going on in the schoolhouse. But [Holton’s] very aware of the broader policy decisions that are going to have to be made. She knows that housing policy needs to be addressed, that poverty needs to be addressed, and I could go on.”
Please don’t. We’ve seen this movie before. This time it stars Hillary Clinton and the Citizens Kaine. Homeschooling, anyone?
Emmett McGroarty and Jane Robbins are both senior fellows at American Principles Project.
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